Evaluation of Iranian Seismic Guidelines: Case Study of Special Steel Moment Frames

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate performance-based procedures in the Iranian Guidelines for the Seismic Rehabilitation of Existing Buildings, which is currently being used for the vulnerability assessment of existing buildings in Iran. For this evaluation, two construction programs are studied for buildings: 1) The displacement coefficient method and 2) The Iranian seismic code (Standard 2800). In this study, several special steel moment-resisting frames are designed, according to Standard 2800 requirements, and their vulnerability is assessed. Analytical results show that some columns do not satisfy life safety requirements at the design hazard level.Moreover, the target displacement estimated by the displacement coefficient method is larger than the maximum displacement calculated by nonlinear dynamic analysis.